Business Development is classically the phase of program development coming between Marketing and Capture. The marketers plan what will be done; the business developers then make friends with the customer and learn what he or she wants; and the capture phase of the business then focuses on defining what is needed to win for the proposal preparation phase.

The business developers must meet the customer personnel significantly far in advance of the RFP in order to learn significant factors about the program; find out what the customer “really wants”, and establish credibility for your team / solution.
Typically, the following things need to be done during the business development effort:

  1. Find out what solution is favored
  2. Influence the development of the program RFP in a way that favors your capability / solution
  3. Get to know the decision makers and what are their preferences and prejudices
  4. Find out what is the customer budget
  5. Find out what are the customer’s “hot buttons”
  6. Find out who is on the Source Evaluation Board (SEB) and the Source Selection Board (SSB) and how the opinions of these personnel play
  7. Find out who is the competition; what is the likely competitor solution / capability; and how to overcome any advantage the competitor may have
  8. Get the customer key personnel such as the Program Manager, the Technical Lead, and any other individuals with significant decision making authority convinced that your company has a low-risk capability to do their job
  9. Select a program manager who is attractive to the customer group for the position

Usually no bidder has the time / capability to do a perfect job of all items mentioned above. However, the better the bidder does at these business development tasks, the more the chance of winning the contract.